Search in SharePoint 2013 Document Library

Without a doubt, Search is one of the key investment areas in SharePoint 2013. From an architectural point of view and a foundation perspective, search in SharePoint 2013 includes a single search runtime that joins the best capabilities of FAST and Enterprise Search technologies. In this article, I will show you how easy and simple it is to find information in a document library and a list providing a great user experience when searching for information.

Take the following stepstest search in a document library:

• First, we need a SharePoint 2013 Team site created in our CloudShare SharePoint 2013environment. In my case, and for evaluation purposes, I will use a SharePoint Online site in Office 365.
• Add some documents to the default document library. In my case I have added a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, and a PowerPoint presentation. Note the search box available on the top of the document library, which is the starting point for a rich user experience when searching documents.
• This search box allows you to search documents in the library without having to leave it. Therefore, you do not need to use the general site search box and you will notbe redirected to your enterprise search page. Additionally, as a user you will not need to experiment with page reloads anymore.

• Type “Test” as search criteria in the document library and click the search button. As you can see, the search is directly done at the document library scope. This means that the user is not redirected to any search center or search page. Additionally, there are not any page reloads.

• Note also that once the search is done, there is an information message in the document library footing indicating that some results might be hidden in the search. If you click in the “hidden” hyperlink, you should see these additional results.

• Just in case there are no hidden results, you can search the entire site by using the “entire site” link displayed once you have clicked the “hidden” one. In this case you’ll be redirected to the default search center configured at your farm:

• Check the cool “preview” document functionality available in SharePoint 2013 search! As you can see in the above screenshot, you can see a preview of the document without having to open it. In order to have this preview capability, you need to install the required plug in or do the required configurations. For instance, you need to install and configure Office Web Apps in order to have the preview of Office documents.

And that’s all there is to know about what’s new in search in document libraries and lists in SharePoint 2013.